


twist my knife and bleed my aching heart

by CadetDru



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Broken Neck, Canon-Typical Violence, Familiars, Head ripping gloves, Human/Vampire Relationship, Master & Servant, Mothman, Multi, Pre-Canon, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: Five Times Nandor Killed For Guillermo+ One Time It Didn't Take+ Bonus Time He Didn't Get The Chance
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 23
Kudos: 75





	1. First: Panera Bread Dumpster

Nandor hunted in one of two ways. In the first few centuries, he'd kept up some variety.The first was the fast and easy way.Find someone with blood, take the blood, leave the body. The second was to take his time, stake (ew) out a particular victim. Getting a new familiar didn't change that, just varied his diet.Nandor hadn't had a familiar for many years. He missed having someone to lead. 

He found this familiar when he was on a hunt of the second variety. He'd found a delicious young virgin and much less delicious non-virgin.The two were working the closing shift at Panera Bread. 

"Can I come in?" Nandor called.

"Yes please," the delicious one said under his breath.It still counted. He was short and plump, dark hair and dark eyes. He was attracted to Nandor's very image.

"Seriously, dude," the other said. He was tall, thin, sinewy, too much gristle, probably anemic. Bleached hair and a spray tan; he loved the very idea of sunlight. "You're that desperate?"

"I would kill you for a chance with him," the delicious one said under his breath.He was threatening his colleague's very life at the idea of receiving attention from Nandor.That was a good quality in a potential familiar, unnecessary in a meal.  


Nandor walked in the room with great dignity. The sun-lover rolled his eyes and looked away. The virgin managed to look harder, his eyes nearly popping out as he looked Nandor over and over and over. 

The virgin wanted to believe in vampires, wanted to walk away into his own death just for the promise of one day being a vampire.Nandor could feel the shape of his very thoughts. 

The other one was not attracted to Nandor.He was attracted to the money in the register that he was trying to angle so the cameras wouldn't see him."Who the fuck are you?"

"Just another degenerate here to buy or sell drugs," Nandor hazarded.

Both of the Panera Bread employees stared at him.

"Are either of you interested in buying or selling drugs with me?"

"No," the delicious one said.

"Friend of yours, Guillermo?" the sun-lover asked. 

The delicious one took long to answer. "I don't think he's an undercover cop."

"He's clearly a fucked up method actor."

"Sorry, sir," the virgin said with courtesy."We're closing up, what can I get you?"

Nandor looked up at the menu."I'm still deciding."

"Take your time," the sun-lover said. "Not like Guillermo has anywhere to go."

"Brian," the virgin said.

"Oh, sorry, we keeping secrets now?" The sun-lover laughed."I'm taking out the trash. Your boyfriend better be gone when I get back."

Guillermo smiled shyly.Nandor returned his smile, baring his fangs.Guillermo took a sharp intake of breath.

"You're..." Guillermo said. 

"Yes, I'm a vampire," Nandor said. He could always decide to eat the virgin later if this didn't pan out. "Would you like to come back to my crypt?"

Guillermo nodded."Yes, please."

In the blink of Guillermo's eye, Nandor went outside to snap the neck of his now former coworker. He threw the lifeless body of the former sun-lover into the dumpster.

He was back, and on the security cameras, talking to Guillermo."I should check on Brian."

"You should not," Nandor said.It was friendly advice, not hypnotism. He looked up to the camera. "We should leave now."

"Back to...to your place."

Nandor nodded. "We will fly there."


	2. Second: Half-Drunk In The Pantry

Sometimes, the vampires in the residence didn't finish a victim.They'd lock them away and keep them for later.If it was "catch and release" then the vampire was supposed to release the victim into the world themselves.

Now that Nandor had a new familiar, a fresh-faced baby of only nineteen human years old, these problems were all supposed to be taken care of.The problem was that Guillermo was just a baby.Even half drained, some of the victims might be able to overpower him until he learned how to properly dispatch an enemy.

Nandor didn't want to to give him too many lessons. Nandor couldn't impose a "no leftovers" rule in the household.No one else would go for it, Colin Robinson would smell weakness and sniff out Nandor's real reasons.Instead, he just started being rude, like the rest of them, and finishing off the leftovers. 

He killed human after human. He did what he could to humanely end their lives to save himself the embarrassment of a series of slightly awkward conversations.He left the corpses for Guillermo to clean up.He didn't have to drink all of the blood to make sure their life force drained away.

Then one tried to fight.Well, several of them had tried to fight, which meant literally nothing.But this one had said "I'm going to kill that little fucker with the glasses."

As last words went, it was very original or inspiring. It was their final breath. Nandor snapped their neck instead of draining their blood. He was shocked at the very insolence to threaten Guillermo like that.Who did they think they were, a meal threatening to hurt Nandor's own familiar? Several threatened Nandor, tried to fight him as they died.That was different. Nandor could defend himself.Guillermo didn't need to.

Nandor dropped the body to the floor, halfheartedly considering a way to stage the body so it looked like an accident had happened.He thought he had it set up effectively, so it would look like they'd been trying to pry the door open. 

As ever, the important thing was to avoid any kind of conversation with anyone else residing in the house, especially Guillermo.Nandor could explain that he just felt like snapping a human's neck.It wasn't untrue, just too close to being completely true. 


	3. Third: Back Alley

Guillermo had been in Nandor's service for a fistful of years. Nandor and Guillermo were walking down a dark alley, arguing about how to properly care for a cape. Guillermo was holding the garment in question folded over his own arms. Nandor was allowing him to hold it.

They were rudely interrupted by a man who needed their jewelry and moneys for his own purposes. Guillermo dropped the cape. Nandor wanted to keep what they had. Guillermo was shaking and trying to comply.

It was ridiculous and beneath them.Nandor moved behind the interloper and broke his neck. The would-be criminal hit the ground with a thump.He tried to resume the argument.Guillermo was shaking so Nandor picked up the cape and Guillermo to just fly the rest of the way home. 

"You didn't feed," Guillermo said when Nandor set him down at the house. 

"I wouldn't have liked the taste," Nandor said. "Petty thievery seasons the blood too sour."

Guillermo frowned. "Is that...metaphorical?"

"No."


	4. Fourth: Polite

Many times throughout the centuries, foolish mortals and immortals tried to take advantage of Nandor's good nature. They thought he was stupid because of the elegance with which he moved through the world. They thought they could pull something over his eyes, blind him to their true intentions. They thought they could embarrass him, and that he wouldn't respond because he (unlike them) was polite and dignified. 

This meant they needed to be taught a lesson about manners. Nandor had adjusted his expectations throughout the years, assimilated into the culture of the era. 

The easiest solution, as ever, lay in the application of Nandor's head-ripping gloves. Grab the head, twist of the wrists, done. The body would fall away and only the head would remain. They wouldn't remember the lesson, but they didn't need to. Nandor would, occasionally but very rarely, deliver the head to their next of kin. This usually meant the second lesson didn't need to be directly administered. 

Trying to take Nandor's property was an understandable offense. He had nice things. He liked a compliment. Trying to take his familiar was also understandable. Nandor would allow the conversation to go to a certain extent. He couldn't tell Guillermo that, couldn't explain the rules so blatantly.

Which was why Nandor killed the little creeping mothman that had whispered to Nandor in the ether that he was going to steal everything of Nandor's, steal his familiar, steal whatever Nandor valued most.

They met on the roof of Nandor's own home because the mothman thought he could infringe on Nandor's territory. Further rudeness. Nandor didn't allow any more to pass. After wrenching his head of his shoulders, Nandor dropped the accursed body to the ground below.

Guillermo had to deal with the mess in the morning, but he didn't have to know why it had occurred. 


	5. Third: ... This Never Happened

Henri the Adventurer was having a party for his "longtime companion" Dawn. He was making his familiar a vampire before she got "too" old.Nandor didn't see the need for haste. There were far too many child or child-like vampires already.

This one was a spoiled child, already planning her own vampiric empire.She wanted to collect familiars like so many of these new ones did. They fed off them draining their blood and energy and waiting for the humans to regenerate it. They were leeches. They were too weak to hunt on their own.

Nandor had to go to the party. They all did. He had to bring Guillermo just to save face. It wouldn't do not to have a familiar at a turning event.

If Nandor killed a familiar before they became a vampire, then it wasn't vampire murder. It was murder of a vampire's property, but that was a minor inconvenience. A vampire could respond, of course, but vampire murder was an absolute taboo so it was hard to enact real revenge.

If the familiar-turned-vampire was in the process of turning, then Nandor was still innocent of true vampiric murder. He thought so at least, and he wasn't going to ask anyone what they thought. It wasn't really done to be out and about in that in-between state, but apparently Henri was playing fast and loose with all kinds of rules.

Dawn needed her first human meal. That was the only reason they were even having this party.Dawn was eyeing Guillermo. There was nothing taboo there.It was just rude.Rudeness was worse in Nandor's eyes, but others say things differently.

Nandor quietly took Dawn aside to explain the rules to her. She didn't seem to care if she was encroaching on his territory. Nandor had never been able to take that kind of insult. 

Nandor happened, just happened, to break a neck that wouldn't stay broken so he could use that momentary disorientation to accidentally take a random piece of wood to the heart of some disrespectful asshole. It was all very understandable, did not count as vampire murder, and was no more than what such rudeness deserve.

"Shit," Nandor said, before going off to find the others. "We need to go," he told Guillermo. the others could fend for themselves, Nadja could talk her way out of anything, but Nandor and Guillermo needed to be anywhere else.

"What? Why?"   


Nandor waved his hand. "We need to go," he said in his best hypnotic voice. He knew it would either work or not, which meant he had a fifty-fifty chance. 

"I'll say bye to Dawn and then find Laszlo and Nadja..."

"We need to go. You and I. It's not safe here."

Guillermo just nodded.


	6. The One He Couldn't Kill: Topher

He kept eulogizing but Topher wouldn't die.

He'd liked Topher.

Even people that Nandor liked couldn't touch his familiar without suffering the obvious consequences. 

He hadn't liked Topher enough to cry over.


	7. Guillermo

Guillermo didn't appreciate all the people that Nandor had killed for him, just because Nandor went to great pains to never let Guillermo know or even to know that Nandor was willing to kill for him. 

Now in the aftermath of terrible night at the theatre, Nandor found out that Guillermo had been killing to protect Nandor. It was both unnecessary and kind of hot. Guillermo had murdered so many vampires. Nandor had been blamed for it.It was like Guillermo had framed him deliberately.

Guillermo released each of the vampires from their manacles on the stage. Nandor was last.They eyed one another warily.

"I should kill you for what you've done," Nandor said, rubbing his wrists.He was still seated in the chair, Guillermo still standing over him. 

"We should leave before Nandor dies," Nadja said.

"You're right as ever, my love," Laszlo said."Bat!"Nadja joined him in flying out of the theatre towards anywhere else. 

Colin Robinson and the camera crew remained.

"We need a minute alone," Nandor and Guillermo said in unison. Nandor stood, Guillermo in all of his badass glory instinctively taking a step back. Nandor focused his sight on Guillermo alone, contenting himself to just hearing the humans (and psychic vampire) run away. 

"Do you want to die?"

"What?" Guillermo said. "Okay, you're either threatening to kill me or trying to propose."

"Do you want me to make you a vampire?"

Guillermo looked around the room. "Not...right now.Not here.

Nandor nodded. "It's just that I need you, need a second-in-command."

"For the house."

"For everything," Nandor waved at the destruction and death around him. "This is the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me."

"It wasn't supposed to be romantic."

"But you killed so many people."

"That isn't a romantic thing to do!"

"Agree to disagree," Nandor said.

Guillermo grabbed Nandor's shoulders."You can not possibly be this stupid.I am trying to keep you safe, that's all.It wasn't some confession of love, I just...had to."

"No decisions yet," Nandor said. He leaned forward to kiss Guillermo. Guillermo went slack under his grip before wrapping his arms around Nandor and pulling him closer.


End file.
